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Community Corner

Our Hometown is What We Make It

Being a community starts with being there for one another.

When you are little, your neighborhood is your whole world. 

The first 10 years last a whole lifetime.  I remember leaving saucer cups magnolia flowers on Mrs. Kaiser’s doorstep on May Day and trying so hard to make sure my ball never landed on the well manicured lawn of Mr. Deyruter.  A great Saturday night was when my parents hired Sara Sanni, the best babysitter on the block.  My memories of a summer afternoon where my parents took our whole block to see Jaws still leave me uncomfortable in the water. 

I have always had an idea of the town I would make my own when the choice was finally mine to make.  As a little girl, I cherished the village that raised me.  While the teen years were bound to take the bloom off that rose, I still wanted that place of belonging.  In my 20s, I was so sure of what I wanted from a hometown.  I knew I wanted the unconditional support of my dorm floor and the loyalty of a Family Ties episode, all with the everyday happiness and freshly floraled décor of a Better Home and Garden magazine.

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I have realized hometowns aren’t custom ordered any more than perfect lives obtained from a drive-thru.  Still so many of us have found our beloved hometown here in this community.   It is easy to see how that happens.  It isn’t the close vicinity to a world class city, the layout of the streets or the per capita income. 

Thousands of kids will grow up with memories of this hometown just as sweet as my own, because the adults have let our actions define this town. As part of the staff involved in recruiting volunteers for the Oswegoland Park District, I have seen the actions of our grownups.  We show up, we lend a hand and we make a difference. 

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Volunteer coaches will be on the sidelines next Saturday cheering kids 4-14 on at soccer games.  Parents stop by classrooms to listen to young readers.  Volunteers lead Daisies, Webelos, Brownies, and Cub Scouts in activities.  Earth Day saw families leading the clean up at many of our parks.  PADS just finished their first successful season due to many volunteers.  The Oswego Senior Center volunteers host lunches twice a week.  Just this morning volunteers taught Sunday School at churches all across town.

My kids beg for a Saturday night when one of the Carr girls can babysit them.  They still recall when we took the whole gang to see High School Musical 3. My babies are growing up with a whole gaggle of neighborhood parents who swung them into their arms when they skinned their knees.  Now that they are getting older, those parents remind my children to say thank you.  They give my kids the ‘I Saw That’ look when my eyes don’t.  These people who were once strangers wave them goodbye at the bus each morning and swell with pride at my child’s elementary accomplishments.

Being a community starts with being there for one another.  When they go to Earth Day and Daisies, at their sports and in their classrooms, our children see the parents in their lives volunteering to help.  This June they will see more at PrairieFest working the gates and driving the courtesy shuttles at their favorite festival.

I hope my son and daughter are smarter than I was.  I hope they don’t look to magazines and television to dream up a hometown.  Perhaps they will realize, you don’t order a hometown, or get lucky and move to a magical place.  You make a hometown.  You show up.  You help.  You be the town you wish to live in.

Thank you all for giving my kids the hometown I always wanted.

Kristie Blocker Vest is the Special Events Coordinator.  If you wish to volunteer at PrairieFest, June 16-19, please contact her at kvest@oswegolandpd.org 

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